What Assassins Do in Their Spare Time
by K. A. Farron
Summary: The Hashashin are a legal organisation of assassins, paid by the law to break the law, recognised by the insignia they wear. No one can hurt them, no one can touch them. Some people think they're myths and legends created by the government. But the true question is what do they do in their spare time? Poor Miku might just find out!
1. Drink Tea and Do Sudoku

What Assassins Do in Their Spare Time

Everyone knew who the Hashashin were. They traveled the world like a deadly plague, killing and maiming in their wake, immortally recognised by the insignia they bore.

But the thing about the Hashashin was that they were a legal organisation. If you wanted someone dead, you hired one of the various assassins, because they never got into trouble. You might, if it was discovered you had done the hiring, but the assassins were allowed to traipse around, doing their daily business, never fearful of the law attacking them while they relaxed.

It was only when the assassin was caught committing the murder that they were arrested. And as with any murder, they were doomed to serve a life sentence in jail. If they weren't caught, they were allowed their freedom.

So, if you ever saw an assassin in public, easily recognised by the glaring insignia, you couldn't ever miss it, you were powerless to do anything. If you tried anything idiotic, you'd be the one arrested for assault. You could gaze at them warily, avoid them if necessary, but the assassin's were protected.

And if you ever, ever hurt one, all hell would break loose and the rest of the Hashashin would murder you in your sleep. As the popular thought was, the Hashashin was a brotherhood, an organised group of civilised gangsters, paid by the law to break the law.

But people were always left to wonder, did they ever do anything in their spare time? If you asked everyone you knew, no one had ever met or seen an assassin. You heard about them online, stories of various encounters, but never in your life did you see one with your own eyes, so it begged the question whether they were real or just a fairytale to keep children behaved.

Miku was one such person who had never seen an assassin before. To be quite frank, she didn't ever want to see an assassin. Ever. She did have quite a few enemies so if she ever saw one, it would probably be because they'd been hired to kill her. Mind you, she WAS in university, and it was universally known students were as poor as a peasant in medieval times. So, even if someone wanted her dead they couldn't afford it unless they robbed the bank of London, or did some other crazy money making stunt that was likely to land them in jail.

Miku was currently sitting in her favourite cafe, slowly drinking a cup of coffee. Even if she was as poor as the poor students who wouldn't be able to afford her demise, she still came to the cafe everyday to have some coffee, even if it meant she couldn't pay for a lot of other things (a decent meal, perhaps).

She was sat at a long table on a high chair, all on her lonesome, waiting to see if anyone came to sit next to her. Sometimes they did, sometimes they didn't. If Miku wasn't in the mood to talk she'd vacate from her usual seat and hide in the corner at one of the lower tables. Fortunately (for her and everyone else she had to interact with) she was in an okay mood, not a happy one, not a sullen one, just an okay one, so she was perfectly all right sitting at her usual seat at the high table, coffee in one hand, book in the other, wondering silently if anyone was to sit next to her.

And someone did. Well, not next to her, two seats down to be exact. As per normal for when someone sat next to her she glanced to the side to examine them. It was a man, slightly older than her, someone she didn't recognise. A new person to town? A tourist? Someone who simply hadn't been in the cafe before?

He had scruffy blonde hair, loosely tied back into a ponytail, which did need to be re-tied. He didn't seem to mind though as a loose piece of hair fell in front of his eyes. He was too busy sipping at a cup of tea and doing a sudoku in the daily newspaper. Miku noted how he was dressed entirely in black, a bit impractical since the weather had started to get warmer. But that was when she spotted it. The insignia.

The man next to her was an assassin.

It suddenly struck her that the noise in the cafe had died down. Was it because he had entered? People were whispering now, and as she slyly glanced around she noticed a lot of eyes were staring at the assassin next to her. He didn't seem to notice, or maybe it was he didn't seem to care. He was a highly trained assassin after all, so he probably knew every single pair of eyes in the room were locked on him. Still, he sipped his tea and his biro flicked across the paper. Clearly the sudoku was a lot more interesting.

Miku couldn't help but stiffen slightly. An assassin was sitting next to her. Her. An assassin. Next to- her brain had quickly become a pile of mush inside her skull. She was sitting next to an assassin. She had convinced herself that they weren't real, that they were only myths and legends created by the politicians and the media to keep the population in check, but here he was, an assassin, sitting next to her, drinking tea. She didn't know assassins drank tea, or did sudoku for that matter. But he was doing both those things, and he looked much like a normal person.

So, as it turned out, assassins were real and they did have a life. They did have spare time, and past times, and things they liked to do. For example, drink tea next to a terrified university student.

Miku dared another look at him. Was he actually there purely to drink tea or was he there to assassinate her? Maybe he was examining her to take a look at his next target. She gulped. Surely no one had amassed the insane amount of money it took to hire an assassin. Surely, surely she was safe and sound and-

The assassin looked up. Miku froze. Clearly he'd been aware she had been watching him so he had looked up at her, his eyes meeting hers. She had half expected his eyes to be that of a monster, to be filled with hate and murder, and to be quite dead. But they were alive and sparkling. They were the eyes of a normal man, not a killer. They were also quite beautiful, a sky blue.

What was she doing? Miku hurriedly looked away. She wasn't at all checking out an assassin. He murdered people for a living, she wanted nothing to do with him. Nothing at all.

"Excuse me?"

Miku tensed and gripped her coffee mug harder. Now he was speaking to her!

"Are you any good at sudoku?" He continued to speak. "I'm quite stuck on this one part."

Posh, articulate, British accent. Kinda like hers, but deeper, and probably void of any form of slang. Man, assassins were actually civilised.

She tensed again, having let herself relax at his (to be honest, fairly sexy) voice.

"It's all right if you are not, I understand," he said. Suddenly a wave of guilt washed over her; he actually sounded fairly hurt that she wouldn't reply to him.

After a second she glanced up at him. He was looking down at his sudoku, an adorable look of concentration on his face. Taking a deep breath and deciding to pay no heed to the fact he was an assassin, she shuffled along one seat so she was right next to him.

"I'm the queen of sudoku," she muttered quietly. "They're piss easy."

He looked at her.

"I, uh-" She coughed. "They're just easy. That one there is a three."

He looked down at the sudoku and then back up at her with a quizzical look. "Are you sure?"

"As sure as I'm sure this is coffee." She held up her mug. "It's a three. The one next to it is seven and the other one is four."

He smiled slightly and filled them out. "Thank you, I have never been particularly good at sudoku."

Oh there it was, that gorgeous, gorgeous voice!

Getting her act together, she simply replied, "Well, you never had me, did you?"

His smile grew and together they completed the sudoku. They then went on to finish their drinks in a vaguely pleasant silence, as he read his paper and she read her book. Miku constantly glanced up at him, but he never looked back. She just wanted to see his eyes again. She didn't care if he was an assassin. He was quite pretty.

Suddenly there was a beeping sound and he pulled his phone out of his pocket.

"Sorry, urgent business," he said as he put his phone away. "Time for me to go."

Miku just laughed hesitantly and waved her hand. "No need for apologies, I have lectures to attend to anyway."

"Then I must not keep you," he said with a smile as he stood up. "Goodbye then."

"Goodbye."

He was about to leave but then he turned back to look at her. "I did not catch your name."

Her name! An extremely gorgeous man was actually asking her name!

Pretty sure she was blushing slightly she said, "Miku, Miku Hatsune."

It only occurred to her afterwards that she shouldn't have given her full name.

"It was nice to meet you, Miss Hatsune," he said. "I am Len. Thank you for helping me, it is not very often a person is willing to assist an assassin, even if it is a mere sudoku."

And with that he left, and Miku knew she'd never see him again. She doubted Len was even his real name, he was an assassin after all, it was probably a code name to keep his identity a secret. But even if it was fake it was going to be a name she'd never forget.

And finally she had her own simple story about an assassin to tell. And she also knew what they did in their spare time. Drink tea and do sudoku. Who'd have thought infamous killers could actually be just normal people?

~Author's Notes~

Just a quick little one shot I did. It's more of a concept than a one shot, and I've been looking for ideas for a longer story for a while! Anyone interested in a longer story? If so any suggestions would be appreciated~

~Kate


	2. Sleep All Day

Chapter 02: In Their Spare Time Assasssins Sleep All Day

There was a general consensus amongst the public that members of the Hashashin were most likely energetic, athletic people. Well, not necessarily energetic persay, but rather quite active in nature. Early, no nonsense risers, that were always productive through out their days.

And maybe they were productive, depending on your definition that was. For Len he was either productively doing work, productively training for work, or productively sleeping, and that was most usually because of work.

For example, that very morning he was buried under a pile of duvets and blankets, almost dead to the world.

"Len," a familiar voice echoed through his room, the it was muffled considering his head was currently buried beneath his sheets. "Len, wake up you lazy snob."

"I do not have to wake up if I do not wish to," came Len's awfully muggy reply. He moaned slightly as he rolled around underneath his covers, determined to go back to sleep and remain that way for as long as possible.

"I've already called you a lazy snob once, don't make me call you it again," the voice huffed.

"I want a lazy morning."

"You've HAD a lazy morning. You are currently having a lazy afternoon."

Len moaned again and eventually his face poked up above the top of his duvet. "It's the afternoon already?"

In front of him stood a female that bared quite a striking resemblance to him. Her blonde hair wasn't as scruffy as his tended to be, but it wasn't exactly neat either. It hung down to her chin, just long enough to tie back into a very small pony tail when she was working. At home though she wore it down, the way she preferred.

Rin, his bossy twin sister. Seeing as she was a good ten minutes older she liked to see herself as the one in charge.

"It's a good six past twelve," she told Len as she glanced at her watch. "So you only missed morning by a small margin."

"Am I not allowed to miss it by a large margin?" he asked groggily as he rubbed at his eyes. "Can I not have a day off."

"You need to exercise for at least an hour a day, lazy bones," Rin huffed. "So get up."

Len mumbled a somewhat out of character rude response, that either Rin didn't hear or pretended not to hear as she turned on her heal and stalked out of the room.

It took another good five minutes for Len to muster the will power to actually get out of bed. He didn't bother getting changed and just settled on slipping out of his room in merely his pyjama bottoms and no shirt. He idled over to the kitchen where Rin already was, and a familiar couple consisting of a silver haired young man and a red headed female were sitting down at the table playing a card game of sorts.

"And he's finally up," the silver haired man said as he looked up. He greeted Len with a warm, very effeminate smile before turning back to his game of cards.

"Good morning, Piko. Good morning, Miki," Len said in reply.

"Good afternoon," Miki corrected as she looked up and gave Len a smile too.

Len grunted in reply and somehow managed to find his way over to where the kettle was. Bleary eyed he also somehow managed to make a rather good tea, despite the fact he had only just gotten up.

"Someone must have gotten a late night last night," Piko pointed out. There was a groan from Miki to signify she had lost their game, and Piko was already picking their cards back up so he could shuffle them, ready for another game.

"Someone actually didn't get a late night last night. In fact they had gotten an early one but decided they still wanted to sleep in anyway," Len replied, feeling a little better now he'd had some tea. He'd always been a tea person.

"Some assassins we are," Rin mumbled, hands on hips. Rin was quite easily the mother of the group, trying to keep the other three in line. It wasn't as if it was hard, it wasn't as if there were any chances to step out of line.

"You know, you sleep a lot, Len," Piko said as he dealt out some cards to himself and Miki. "Can't be healthy."

"It's not as if we have anything else to do when we're not working," Len replied as he continued to sip his tea. "Might as well sleep."

"Might as well train," Rin scolded him, hitting him across the back of the head with a newspaper.

Len moaned, and promised to do some training only after he'd finished his tea. Rin watched him like the hawk she was, staring intently as he set down and did the weekly sudoku in the newspaper, and as soon as he had finished snatched his cup away and shooed him back upstairs, telling him he could finish the sudoku later. Begrudgingly he got into something more suitable for training and slumped over to the small fitness suite they had, thankfully now properly awake, though no more motivated than he had been when snuggling beneath his covers.

Every assassin household had a dedicated room for training, and their's was no different. Their small room contained various machines and items one would find at a traditional gym: a treadmill, cross trainer, training bike, rowing machine and a few weight machines, along with Dumbbells and a fitness ball that sat in the corner, remaining largely unused.

Before even setting foot on any of the machines Len glanced up at the clock on the wall. 12:21. He had a good one and a half hours to train, then he'd get showered and dressed and do the one thing assassins never did in their spare time.

Leave the house.

It was fair enough that most people you would talk to would assume that the Hashashin would be cold people, because you would have to be if you willingly chose to kill people for a living, wouldn't you? People would say that the Hashashin had no emotions and spent their days relentlessly training and plotting evil schemes, keeping themselves so busy that they never had the time to leave their homes, hence why they were never seen. Perhaps they sent servants out to do their biddings, seeing as how they were perceived as 'evil' by the public.

The public had one thing right; members of the Hashashin were shut ins, but for completely different reasons than they might think.

Assassins were cursed with the unfortunate task of always showing their insignia when they left the safety of their house. Want to go out to buy some milk? Insignia. Want to go for a stroll in the park? Insignia. Want to pop down to the chippie? Insignia. Want to go to a coffee shop because the last time you went there was a really cute girl who was actually willing enough to talk to you therefore you want to try and meet her again? Insignia. Always insignia, never no insignia. Well, apart from if you were doing a job. You would have to get special permission then otherwise you would stick out like a sore thumb, and that would defeat the purpose of being an assassin.

So, this insignia. No one liked it, not the public, not the police, and certainly not the assassins burdened to wear it. Wearing it meant stares and whispers, it meant dirty looks, it meant accusing glares. What it meant was no peace and quiet when they left the safety of their homes.

Hence why if you came across an Hashashin household you would come across a household of shut ins, in the traditional sense of the word. Assassins were quite simply people that were afraid of the outside world.

These thoughts swirled around Len's head as he did his training, serving as quite a nice distraction. Not that he needed much of a distraction with the jazzy tunes he had decided to play in the background, but sometimes music wasn't necessarily enough, and only thinking positively would be motivating and distracting enough. Too distracting, actually, because Len found himself slipping and falling off on the treadmill, thankfully being saved by the emergency pull attached to his waist.

He thought about this as he finally came to an end to his training, taking a deep breath to slow his heart rate down. He thought about this as he took a massive swig of water from the machine in the corner of the room. He thought about this as he treated himself to a long, warm shower (though proceeded to get shampoo in his eye because he wasn't being careful enough).

By the time he had gotten dressed into his typical black attire, insignia glaring on his shoulder, it was about three o'clock. Len trudged downstairs to find the others no longer in the kitchen, but rather in the living room playing Monopoly.

"What are you doing, dressed and ready to go out?" Rin asked with a frown, looking up from their game.

"I'm going out. Is it not simple?" Len replied, glancing down at the board. From the looks of it Piko was losing since he had next to no money, but seeing as he owned nearly half the board Len knew that would soon change.

"You're going out?" Miki gasped, her eyes wide as she flung her arms up melodramatically into the air.

Piko and Rin both stared at Len with the most confused expressions one could muster.

"So Lazy Bones is feeling social today, huh?" Piko asked, before looking back down at the board. "Hey, Rin that's my space. Cough up."

Rin begrudgingly handed over the money before turning back to her brother. "Where exactly are you going?"

Len looked down at the floor as he fiddled with one of the strands of his long hair. "Well, this time last week I decided on a whim to check out a coffee shop. There was this rather attractive girl there and I was hoping to see her again."

"Len has a crush!" Miki sang.

"Well that was unexpected," Rin replied, eyebrows raised. "You do realise though-"

"That affections outside the Hashashin family are not recommended because of the hassle they sometimes cause, but aren't necessarily forbidden either," Len said, before Rin could roll of onto a lecture. "I know, Rin. You needn't worry."

Rin smiled and simply shook her head. "Well, go enjoy. You have all the spare time in the world."

Len nodded then bid farewell to his fellow assassins. Upon leaving the room he heard an exclamation from Piko that Miki had landed on Mayfair, and by the groan Miki returned Len could only assumed she now owed the silver hair assassin a lot of money. Without a doubt when Len returned later they would still be playing games.

In the mean time Len had an attractive young female to try and find. Miku Hatsune. The name still left a smile on his lips.

~Author's Notes~

A big thank you to allechant for reminding me this was a thing, and giving me the motivation I needed to continue. Don't expect an update any time soon, or a coherent/deep story at that. I'm swamped with Uni work and have actual novels to work on (hurray for wannabe authors ^.^) so I don't have much time to work on so many fanfics, especially since I'm currently investing the rest of my free time into the fanfic I actually have properly planned.

Anyway hope you enjoyed, I know there wasn't any Miku, but you all love Len I'm sure.

~Kate

PS: I'm guessing I should move this to unfinished now?


End file.
